Gender Responsive Budgeting

1. Gender Responsive Budgeting Workshop for Senior Government Officials Majuro, RMI March 10-11, 2003

2. Opening Address Minister of Finance Hon. Brenson Wase

3. Introductions and gender quiz • Please say your name and what your work is. • Gender quiz

4. Gender words and men & women’s roles in the RMI • What does the list of Marshallese words say about men and women’s traditional roles? • How have these traditional gender roles changed for men and women? • Why do you think (or why don’t you think) that men and women’s roles have changed from their traditional meanings?

5. Gender words and men & women’s roles in the RMI: Feminine Words • Jined ilo Kobo • Kora Menunaak • Kora im Ankil

6. Gender words and men & women’s roles in the RMI: Masculine Words • Ekkwikwi Jin-en Emaan • Mommaan Keimokraan • Mommaan Maronron

7. Objectives of this workshop This workshop will provide: • An overview of the project goals • An outline of the RMI project proposal • An understanding of the use of gender impact assessments using a case study of teen pregnancy in the RMI • An understanding of cross ministry gender and budgetary issues • Establish the next steps in the project for the Ministry teams

8. Integrating a gender perspective into public expenditure management in the Pacific Project Summary

9. Gender responsive budget pilot project in RMI • ADB RETA: training and capacity building in public expenditure management • Coordinated by the Ministry of Finance • 5 pilot ministries

10. Why Gender? • Budgets and programmes ultimately impact on people but these impacts differ according our gender, age, wealth, where we live, etc • Men and women have different roles and different economic and social positions in the RMI (see statistics on project website) so Ministry programmes and their funding tend to impact differently on men and women. • It is important to know the gender impacts of programmes and budgets for Ministries to carry out their work fairly, efficiently and effectively.

11. International context of project • Economic reforms in RMI and the Pacific have had social impacts which need to be redressed • The need to integrate social programmes and planning with budgeting to achieve the country’s social and economic goals • Growth in gender responsive budgets internationally as a good governance strategy (transparency, accountability, participation)

12. What’s been done in the project so far • Timeline RMI September 2002-February 2003 • March 2003-July/August 2003?

13. Project goals: What are we trying to achieve? • This project has 3 core goals and involves a series of activities to further these goals

14. Promote transparency and accountability Raise Awareness Change Budgets Change Policies and Budgets Promote Transparency and Accountability Raise Awareness Goals are a) interdependent b) hierachial

15. Goals of Gender Responsive Budgets Promote transparency and accountability of the gender impacts of government budgets Raise awareness of the gender issues of budgets and programs Change/adjust programs and budgets to promote gender equality

16. Filling in the circles with a range of activities A variety of tasks are undertaken to achieve the 3 goals of a gender responsive budget

17. Awareness raising activities • Exercises in understanding how gender is socially constructed (eg identifying what men and women in ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t do’ in the RMI) • Marie Maddison’s presentation ‘Men and women in the RMI’ that showed the role of language in understanding gender in the RMI, changes in gender roles change over time and the influence of many factors • Presentation by RMI Statistician of gender disaggregated Census data

18. Awareness raising activities • Framework presented in the first workshop for understanding the direct and indirect gender impacts of government expenditure • Audit exercise- ministry teams identified their activities/programs that directly and indirectly impacted on men and women and different groups of men and women • Project website • Capacity building with NGO’s/WUTMI

19. Transparency and accountability activities • Coordination of the pilot project by the Ministry of Finance • Linking gender issues to national priorities in Vision 2018 • Public awareness raising on teen pregnancy (radio programmes) • Undertaking research and providing reports on teen pregnancy • Capacity building in budgeting and gender issues of ministries and WUTMI

20. Changing budgets and programmes activities • Develop new programme proposals and budgets? • Re-design existing programmes and identify resource reallocations? • Identify cross ministry issues and implement solutions? • Improve the links between planning (Vision 2018, Women’s Policy) and budgeting? • Develop budget advocacy capacity of NGOs?

21. The RMI Proposal • Panel presentation by Ann Marie Muller, Marie Maddison, Ione deBrum and Erma Myazoe • Discussion

22. Teen Pregnancy in the RMI A Research report by the Ministry of Health and Environment Jonathan Santos

23. Teen Pregnancy in the RMI A research report by Emi Chutaro Youth to Youth in Health

24. Activity 1: Unpacking the consequences of teen pregnancy in the RMI • What are the impacts of teen pregnancy in the RMI? Think about this question in terms of: • consequences for teen parents • consequences for the families of teen parents • consequences for RMI society and economy

25. Activity 2: Defining and responding to the problem • Consider why teen pregnancy is seen as a problem in the RMI, and by whom. • Identify programs/activities from your Ministry that impact directly or indirectly on the issue of teen pregnancy

26. Stories of Teen Pregnancy Programmes • Please refer to the handout.